


We All Need Someone We Can Dream On

by littlehollyleaf



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Drama, Episode: s06e21 Let It Bleed, F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-05-15
Updated: 2011-05-15
Packaged: 2018-09-15 15:27:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,936
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9241574
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/littlehollyleaf/pseuds/littlehollyleaf
Summary: Pre-episode speculation. Lisa and Ben are terrified when a couple of demons possess their friends and steal them away, but help arrives in the form of an unlikely, trenchcoat-clad figure. Someone Ben is delighted to finally get the chance to meet in person, and someone Lisa learns Dean has been keeping secrets about for a very long time.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Title taken from _The Rolling Stones_ 'Let it Bleed.'

**We All Need Someone We Can Dream On**

 

Lisa can feel Ben tremble in her arms and she tries to be strong for him, tries not to let her own terror show. But it's hard with sweet old Mr Newman staring across at them, oily black pools occupying the space in his soft, wrinkled face where his eyes should be.

She's heard Dean describe demons before, of course, but she hadn't realised just how _horrible_ they'd be. How familiar and yet so devastatingly different. Because it's still her neighbour standing there, his corduroy jacket, grey socks and sandals, and yet the straightness of his back and the wickedness in his smile is so terribly _other_ it makes her cold all over in a way she hasn't felt since that awful night she'd looked round to see something twisted and wrong where the reflection of her son should have been.

He - _it_ \- pockets the damp cotton and rope that had bound her and Ben so recently with a smirk and tilts it's head down to the other one on the floor, the one who's busy smearing intricate, bloody markings on the wooden boards around them.

Joyce. Or she used to be. Ben's English teacher. Always so nice to Lisa at teacher's evenings - generous with her smiles and happy to chat, about anything and everything under the sun. She'd even offered a consoling cup of coffee at the last when she'd heard about Lisa's break up with Matt.

It makes Lisa sick to her stomach, a cold churning deep in the pit, to see her friend crawling, animal-like, on her knees, elegant stockings gaining a busy network of ladders as they catch on splinters, fingers painted red from the cruel slice Lisa had watched her make in her own arm. The blood is seeping into the cuffs of her lacy chemise at the elbows - this season's latest, Joyce liked to keep up - but the, _thing_ , inside her is careful not to let a drop fall out of place on the floor.

An age passes as the two of them work. Joyce mapping out an ever more complex design in a gradually widening circle, while Mr Newman offers occasional instructions, voice clipped and cold and nothing like the friendly stutter Lisa's used to.

She holds Ben close to her chest the whole while, feeling the wild patter of his heart where her palms rest above it and hating how powerless she is to help him. To help herself.

There's frustration there too, as well as fear, because she hadn't been stupid in Dean's absence. She'd known that even with him out of their lives it didn't mean the monsters were. So she'd kept all his wards in place - under the carpet and the wallpaper - and repainted them once a week. She'd salted the windows every night, carried a flask of Holy Water and a small silver knife in her pocket wherever she went and made sure Ben did the same.

But it hadn't helped. Not when Joyce had led them, unsuspecting, to where Mr Newman had been waiting with gags and rope when Lisa came to pick Ben up from school. Despite all her precautions, all Dean had taught her, she just hadn't thought to suspect her friends. There'd been signs, Lisa supposes. Subtle differences in Joyce's behaviour that should have tipped her off. But she hadn't been looking. And there wasn't a chance to fight before they were bound and gagged and dumped in the van that had driven them here, weapons snatched roughly away.

"Think that's it," the thing that should be Mr Newman nods once the thing that should be Joyce joins up the last circle.

" _Think?_ " Joyce snaps, blonde ponytail whipping over her shoulder as she turns up to him, scowling. "Better be certain. You heard the boss. Screw this up and we're _dead_."

"No," says another voice from out of nowhere. Booming. And painful. Like a scrape across gravel as you fall. "You're dead already."

There's a glare of white light that forces Lisa's eyes closed and when she opens them Joyce is slumped on the floor, gaze her usual brown and fixed, unseeing, on the ceiling.

Further away, Mr Newman is backing against the grimy wall opposite, peeling wallpaper flaking off and onto the patches on his shoulders. Before him is another man - _demon?_ \- Lisa can only see the back of. His dark hair is tousled, shoulders tense beneath a long, tan trenchcoat.

"What are you _doing?_ " Mr Newman asks, voice shaking with fear. "The boss isn't going to like this."

"He is _not_ my boss," the newcomer intones, moving closer. "And he had _no right_ to do this."

"Look," Mr Newman tries, growing desperate. "I'm just following orders, alright? You can't blame me for that. And... and you and the boss might have your differences, but we all want the same thing here. One big, happy family."

It's the wrong thing to say. The other _had_ eased up a little, head tilting bird-like to the side as he listened. But the demon's last few words seem to strengthen his resolve and he slams a palm against the side of Mr Newman's face. Mr Newman gives a short and frantic scream, there's another flare of light Lisa has to turn away from, then a brief slide of fabric over paper as Mr Newman's body drops to the ground.

"You know nothing of family."

Lisa blinks round again as soon as she can, eyeing the newcomer wearily as he turns to face them.

She's not sure what she was expecting, but a dishevelled suit and tie, a weary expression and a five o'clock shadow isn't it.

The man looks them over in silence, then drops his gaze to the lines on the floor. Perhaps it's just the lack of window and the meagre light from the weak bulb in the ceiling, but his eyes seem impossibly blue.

His lips purse as he traces the markings and after a moment his gaze flicks up, meeting Lisa's first then dropping down to Ben.

"Don't move," the man says, stepping closer to kneel at the edge of the outer circle. Ignoring Joyce's body stretched out beside him, he reaches a hand above the line, takes a breath and closes his eyes. His brow furrows as he concentrates and then, suddenly, some of the marks are glowing - a sickly, eerie crimson that makes Lisa gasp and take a step back.

The man lowers his hand at once, although the glow persists without it, and stares up at her.

"Stay where you are," he repeats, voice hard, somewhere between a threat and a command. "These sigils are complex. It is dangerous to attempt to leave the inner circle before they are unravelled."

She still doesn't know if he means them harm or not, or even what he is - there's definitely something in his demeanour, in his _eyes_ ,that screams 'not human' - but the simple authority in the man's voice makes Lisa believe him about this at least.

Glancing over her shoulder she sees that, as he says, there is a small, unbroken ring of blood around her and Ben before the intricate stuff starts. It's enough for them both to sit down in, if they're careful and she keeps Ben on her lap, and she's still several feet away from crossing the line. But nevertheless, she stills, holding herself and Ben rigid.

"I can work through the spell," the man continues, eyes once again following the lines. "But it will take time."

"Who are you?" Lisa manages, voice scratchy and dry from fear and the rank fibres in her gag. "And what did you do? To the others."

She nods at Joyce and Mr Newman, but the man doesn't even spare the bodies a glance.

"They're dead," he says shortly.

Lisa feels Ben swallow something back - shock or grief - and she moves a hand up his t-shirt to squeeze his shoulder.

" _Them?_ " she asks, a sudden, maternal, flood of adrenaline making her bold. "Or the things inside them?"

The man's eyes once more move up to hers, but this time they hold there. It's an invasive gaze, no less effecting than Mr Newman's had been, and yet, there's a inquisitiveness to it as well that reminds her of Ben - an element of naivety, like he's not assessing her so much as trying to understand something he doesn't yet have experience enough to comprehend.

"These hosts," he begins, looking down at Joyce and over his shoulder at the crumbled Mr Newman. His eyes seem to dim, but perhaps it's the light. "Were killed upon their possession. It is only the demons I destroyed."

Lisa can feel Ben relaxing at this, but she is far from ready to trust their apparent saviour just yet.

"You're saying you're not a demon?" she says. "Then what are you?"

He looks back to her, but it's Ben who answers.

"You're Castiel," he breathes, a hitch in his voice Lisa only half recognises - there's youthful enthusiasm there, the kind she knows intimately from well-received birthday presents or happy days out, but there's something else too, a kind of _wonder_ entirely beyond material gain. "You're the _angel_."

A quick glance at the man kneeling before them reveals an impassive response to this and Lisa frowns at her son.

"What angel?"

" _Mom_ ," Ben answers, shifting away a little to roll his eyes at her in typical teenage fashion. She doesn't let him leave her embrace completely, though, one hand still at his shoulder; ever mindful of the red line surrounding them and the distance his sneakers are from the edge of it. "You know. The one Dean told us about, who helped him save the world."

"Ben, what do you mean?" Lisa's heart flutters, new fear taking hold. She was separated from Ben the whole van ride over. Could they have done something to him in that time? "You know Dean didn't talk about that."

Ordinarily, the look Ben gives her - eyes widening, bottom lip drawing back for his teeth to worry - would arouse a sense of disapproval. Because it's her son's 'ooops, _busted!_ ' expression. But here and now the overriding response is relief. The only thing wrong with Ben is a healthy disregard for parental instruction.

And yet, despite the situation, she can't help clinging to the sudden normality of the slip and sighs, tutting.

"Ben -"

"I know you told me not to ask him about it," he interrupts, apologetic and defensive together. "But I couldn't help it!" He turns to the man outside the circle, as though he might somehow sanction his behaviour. "And I'm right, aren't I? That's how you were able to exorcise those demons without a spell or a weapon or anything."

This throws everything back into stark relief for Lisa - the demons, her friends - and she too looks to the man - the angel? - for an answer.

"Yes," he nods. "I am Castiel. I am... an angel. Of the lord."

Which has Ben relaxing all the way and even managing a smile, as if Dean himself had just arrived to take them to safety.

Castiel blinks at the expression, before returning his attention to the lines on the floor, one hand drawing in the dust beyond the marks while his eyes trace around them, presumably working out how to 'unravel' the thing, as he'd said.

Lisa, however, keeps herself tense. Not just because she still sees no reason to trust this Castiel, but because she still has no knowledge of him. None. Whatsoever.

Dean had mentioned an apocalypse, yes. The biblical kind - Heaven verses Hell with Earth as the playing field. So she knew enough to have taken angels from her 'fairytale' list, at least, even if she had been expecting something more impressive, more _majestic_ , than the run-down accountant look Castiel's sporting. Dean had also told her Sam had died stopping the intended Armageddon. But that was it. No more. His eyes would turn inwards and distant whenever the subject came up, so she'd learnt not to push. Just let him talk when he needed to and held him at night through the screams and the tears.

Some things were just too painful, she reasoned. And she'd respected that. Told Ben to as well.

It's bad enough knowing Ben had ignored her and been pressing Dean about those times behind her back, but at least she can understand that - he's young. Excitable. And his hero worship of Dean had only grown since the night he'd saved him and the other kids from that... that monster that had kidnapped them all. It was inevitable, really, that Ben would want war stories at some point, just as it was inevitable that, when he asked, Dean wouldn't worry Lisa about it, because he wouldn't want either of them to think the memories bothered him.

But to learn there was this whole other person, this _angel_ , Dean had been keeping, not to himself, but specifically _from her_ , was something Lisa didn't know what to make of. Why? Why would Dean tell Ben about him and not her, if he truly were a friend?

"You're really a friend of Dean's?"

Castiel pauses, opens his mouth, then hesitates.

"Once you're free, I will take you to him," he answers.

Strangely indirect, but at least his intention seems genuine. Which does calm Lisa down a little, aching muscles in her shoulders unknotting for the first time in what feels like forever. Because if they can get to Dean she knows they'll be safe. That Ben will be safe.

Further reassuring is the light press Castiel makes to one of the glowing markings with a finger. As soon as he touches it the light and the blood vanish with a quiet sizzle, a collection of other, similar, markings around them disappearing at the same time. Lisa might not understand the first thing about magic, but that certainly looks like a step towards freedom to her.

"Cool..." Ben mutters, crouching down to observe Castiel more closely.

"Ben, be careful," Lisa warns. She gets an absent nod back, but notes that Ben is staying well clear of the edge of the bloody circle.

Ben watches Castiel work for a while, but inevitably his eyes are drawn to his teacher's body and Mr Newman's beyond.

"Are Mrs Davies and Mr Newman really dead?" he asks, voice dropping to a whisper.

Lisa's first instinct is to shush him, not just to stop him thinking about stuff like that, stuff it really isn't fair for a kid his age to have to worry about, but also because she fears what the consequences might be of distracting Castiel as he works to free them.

The angel seems unperturbed, however. In fact, a few seconds pass were Castiel continues to follow patterns across the floor with his eyes, muttering strange, guttural sounds under his breath, and Lisa thinks he is simply going to ignore the question.

Then he quietens, and touches a hand to another mark but doesn't press down, simply rests his fingers there and lets the glow continue. Marking his place, Lisa thinks.

A flash of uncertainty crosses his face, then he reaches across to Joyce with his free hand, gently drawing her eyes closed. The touch is surprisingly tender, coming so soon after his harsh treatment of the demons before. This done, he lifts his head to stare up at Ben, gaze so deep and sad that Lisa too can feel the intensity of it.

"I'm sorry," he says, voice heavy.

Ben swallows again, eyes shining, trying so hard to be brave. Mrs Davies had been one of his favourites, and Mr Newman used to give him homemade lemonade at weekends when he came back from bike rides. Lisa wishes she could take the pain away, but there's nothing she can do.

"Dean said..." Ben starts, voice catching. "Dean said, sometimes, you can bring people back. Can you bring them back?"

Castiel doesn't look away when he answers, gaze fixed only on Ben. Lisa thinks that would freak her out, but Ben seems to appreciate the stare. He's younger, she supposes, and less shy about such things.

"No," Castiel tells him. "Their souls have already crossed too far beyond this world. I... there are, too many risks involved in searching for them now. For them, their essence, as much as for me."

This means little to Lisa, but Ben, who can spend hours playing fantasy video games and reads far too many comic books, nods like he understands perfectly.

"Okay..." he whispers, glancing at the bodies of his friends one more time, then looking down. Accepting. Grieving.

He misses the way Castiel's expression changes from simple sorrow to regret, eyelids dropping. It's a look that seems more personal than the occasion calls for, but then, what does Lisa know of the way of angels?

A second later, Castiel shifts his hand and mutters something unintelligible. Another series of curving lines burn away.

"You brought Dean back, though," Ben sniffs, growing petulant in his grief. "Didn't you? That's why he has that mark on his shoulder?"

Lisa stares, wide-eyed, from her son to Castiel and is stunned to see the angel nod.

"Yes," he answers, shuffling a few inches round the circle and tracing a finger through the air above more lines. "That was a special case. I had many angels to help me then... Now I am alone."

Lisa had simply ignored the handprint at first - she had greater concerns, like getting Dean to eat and sleep and change his clothes occasionally. But once their relationship had started to... deepen, addressing it became unavoidable. She'd been as tactful as she could, not making a big deal out of it, caressing over the mark no different to the way she touched any other part of Dean. But eventually she had to ask, fingertips lingering over the scar as she did, part of her itching to fit her own hand to the brand, like it might somehow bind this brave, wonderful, mysterious man to her. Might draw her closer to him in turn so he would finally let her in past that fiery wall around his heart. The one they both pretended wasn't there but that Lisa could feel burning her at night with every screamed or murmured name in her ear, names that were never hers.

He'd pulled her hand away to stop her. Just a war wound, he'd said. Nothing of import. Then he'd quirked his lips in half a smile to the side, as though at some joke she wasn't, and never would be, part of, before pulling her on top of him and kissing her thoughts away.

They never spoke of it again.

But here, finally, was the answer. This is where the scar came from - an unshaven man in a dirty trenchcoat. And he'd made it saving Dean's life. _Restoring_ his life.

That was no war wound. That was a _miracle_.

So why hadn't he told her?

There's silence for a time as Lisa thinks this over and Castiel returns to his work.

Then -

"Do you really have wings miles high like Dean said?"

Lisa _does_ shush Ben this time, kneeling - _carefully_ \- beside him and placing a warning hand on his shoulder. Not least because she's getting a little sick of hearing about the seemingly never ending list of things Dean's said - and _hasn't_ said - on this subject.

"Ben, honey, don't interrupt."

"It's okay, mom," he assures her, tone precocious - the same he uses when she tries to talk to him with his school friends these days, the underlining whine of 'mom, you're so out of touch it's embarrassing' almost palpable. "Castiel's done _much_ harder stuff than this. Like time travel and fighting archangels and stuff."

When his gaze drops back to the angel his eyes are all but glowing - the same awe Lisa's only ever seen him show Dean before. Another shock. In many ways this conversation is shaking her more than the demons had.

"So is it true? About your wings? And when you spread them there's thunder and lightning? Dean said he nearly shit himself when he first saw them!"

" _Ben!_ " Lisa scolds on instinct - not the first time she's had to reprimand her son for bad language picked up from Dean.

But to her surprise, far from being annoyed at Ben's persistence, Castiel actually cracks a smile - small, it's true, but there - a gust of air very like a chuckle passing his lips. It's the first real, relatable emotion he's shown, and as he turns, eyes bright, to Ben, Lisa finds herself smiling back along with her son before she can think about it. As though Castiel really were the man he appears to be.

As though he were human

"He was... afraid when we first met, yes," Castiel admits.

Ben's smile slips into a grin.

"You must be _awesome_ then," he enthuses. "Cos Dean's not afraid of _anything_."

The smile stays, but Lisa can see from the way the sparkle dulls in Castiel's eyes that he no longer means it. Like her, he knows full well the deep-rooted extent of Dean Winchester's fears.

How odd, to see that understanding not in family or extended family, like Sam and Bobby Singer, but in a stranger. It was arrogant, perhaps, but she'd come to think of herself as the only outsider close enough to Dean to see the hidden parts of him like that.

"He said you were a badass fighter too," Ben continues, encouraged by the warmth of Castiel's response. "And you were always there when he needed you. Like a superhero."

That sounds somewhat excessive for Dean and Lisa suspects Ben is exaggerating, trying to flatter the angel so he'll smile at him some more.

Which is why it's so strange that Castiel looks down and away at the praise. He traces another glowing mark with a finger, as though that was his intention with the move all along, but years of watching Ben trying to brazen his way out of doing something or being somewhere he knows he shouldn't has given her an eye for deception and she can't help thinking that work on the markings has become an excuse, something to hide behind.

"Like Superman," Castiel says quietly, the humour in his tone stripped away so he sounds more morose than anything.

"Yeah, only way cooler," Ben responds, oblivious. "Superman's kinda lame and his costume's stupid. Dean said -"

"When did Dean tell you all this?" Lisa cuts in, finally losing patience with the constant revelations, and more than a little unnerved by Castiel's sudden switch from outwardly human back to stoic. It makes her feel uneasy, like conversation with him might be something like petting a wildcat. All sweetness and purring one minute, then scratches and hisses the next, with no warning of the change. Friend of Dean's or not, she's not sure she wants her son getting too close to this... creature.

"Oh, you know, when we were fixing cars and stuff, mostly," Ben shrugs, thankfully turning his attention away from Castiel to answer. The angel sets silently about his work again. "And I didn't bug him about it at first, I _swear_. It was an accident. You know how he used to call me Sam sometimes by mistake? Well, it was like that. He was trying to explain something about engines, but I wasn't following it and I guess I looked kinda blank or whatever and he laughed and said 'my friend Cas used to look at me like that all the time.'"

Lisa stills, heart dropping for a second, before picking up again at double it's previous pace. Despite this, she keeps her breath even so as not to show it and resists the urge to glance at Castiel - _Cas_ \- again. He's still visible in the corner of her eye, though, and it doesn't escape her attention that he falters in his movements over the word 'friend.'

"So I asked who he meant," Ben continues, passed defensive and into beseeching now. "And he just told me. We made it a joke after that. Like, I'd pretend not to understand him and he'd tell me to quit with the angel impressions. He didn't seem... sad... like when I tried to ask him about Sam. So... I thought it'd be okay... It wasn't _really_ wrong of me to ask, was it?"

He's so adorably uncertain, suddenly, and Lisa's distracted enough to buy the act.

"No, honey," she assures him, absently smoothing back his hair. "If Dean wanted to tell you then it's fine."

And now, at least, she knows why he _didn't_ want to tell her.

It shouldn't matter. Not with Dean and her over and done, officially in the past. His secrets aren't her problem anymore.

But nonetheless, she can't help narrowing her eyes a little as she watches Castiel shuffle to the side of them to attend to another part of the circle.

~*~

'Complex,' it turns out, was an understatement. Castiel's work on the bloody markings stretches from minutes to hours, his pauses between answers to Ben's questions growing longer and longer until eventually Ben gives up on them altogether.

Lisa feels a sick sense of triumph at the disappointment on her son's face, glad to see his latest hero brought down a peg or two.

Then the quiet closes in, oppressive, around them, broken only by the occasional incantation from Castiel, and all she feels is weary.

It's not long before Ben is yawning and sagging against her, the late hour and the steady loss of adrenaline sapping his strength. Lisa feels the same, of course, but she wills her eyes open.

Since they're clearly not going anywhere any time soon, though, she sees no reason to make her son suffer any more than he has to and settles him across her lap to rest. Before long he's deep asleep, breathing peacefully, his face smooth with a calm Lisa envies.

Castiel has come almost full circle by then and two thirds of the markings have been erased.

Lisa watches as he slides closer, Joyce's body on the other side to when he'd started, her heart warring between gratitude and suspicion. She's so tired everything has taken on something of a dreamlike quality so that when she speaks it takes her a moment to comprehend that she actually is, that of all the things swirling around in her mind she has, in fact, selected one to voice aloud.

"You were close? You and Dean?"

Another, telling, hesitation.

"We fought together," Castiel answers without looking up. He looked to Ben, often, but he rarely looks directly at her, Lisa notes.

She should leave it there. Part of her _wants_ to leave it, to let the angel get them out of here, to safety and to Dean, and forget. But the rules of the dream - nightmare? - insist there's a story playing out in this place that must been seen through to its conclusion. A story left unspoken too long already.

"Why didn't you visit?"

"I was... busy," the angel mutters to another smear of blood. He's touched so much of it now his skin has picked up the shade, dry red staining his fingertips.

"All year?"

Silence.

Then -

"He didn't want me." Castiel lifts his head slowly, blue eyes burning hot and icy cold at the same time. Impossible to decipher. "He had you."

Lisa wants to believe it, so badly. But she knows better.

"He used to scream at night, you know," she starts, surprised at the sound of her own voice - light and conversational and without a single tremor to be heard. "So loud sometimes he'd wake Ben two doors down." She remembers the first time. Ben had rushed in with a pot of salt he'd stolen from the kitchen to keep under his pillow. "He'd scream for his brother. His parents and Bobby Singer." Her eyes drop, Castiel's gaze too intense for her, as she knew it would be. "And also, a girl's name. Over and over." She takes a breath, dreamlike sensation fading as her heartbeat picks up again. But she'll see this through anyway, because it's the truth. Because, maybe Castiel needs to hear it as much as she does. "I didn't think anything of it at first. After everything he'd been through, he was bound to be confused... but he didn't stop. And she was... different from the others. He'd scream for her the same, in panic and fear, and wake up shaking from it. But sometimes... sometimes he'd whisper her name so softly, like..." Like a lover, she thinks. And from the way Castiel's jaw clenches at the edge of her vision she could almost imagine he heard her. "He'd sleep peacefully those nights... straight through to the morning..."

She glances back up and Castiel's watching her avidly, sat back on his haunches with his coat pooled out behind him. Bloodied fingers at his sides.

"Eventually, I had to ask him. I had to know. And he got that look. You know the one." Because he does, this angel, she's certain of that. "When something's just too much for him to deal with, so he just -" She waves a hand across her own face, miming what she means. "- shuts off." Castiel lifts his head, very slightly. Understanding. "He told me she was an ex-girlfriend. Cassandra. The first girl he ever loved. Said it ended badly and he didn't want to talk about it." She smiles, flat and dry, as she remembers how touched she'd been that he'd even told her that much. "I know about first loves. How much they can break your heart. Believe me, I know. So I didn't ask for details. He'd just saved the world, I figured he deserved that. I thought he would stop... and he got better, he did. The nightmares got less frequent. He'd only shout for Sam every other night. But... he always came back to her. Even the nights when he said nothing else. And I should have known, I should have done, that there was something I was missing." She shakes her head, how _could_ she have missed it? "Because when he told me about her, he always called her Cassie." She looks down and finds Ben's sleeping face swimming before her eyes. Oh god, when had she started crying? How embarrassing. She swallows to try and get a hold of herself, but her voice still sounds broken as she finishes. "But it wasn't _Cassie_ he was calling for at night."

She wipes at her face as she looks back and finds the skin dry, which is something. She's kept her tears in check at least.

And something else - Castiel's eyes, still fixed, unwavering, upon her, look brighter. Like they're also wet.

Somehow, that doesn't seem as ridiculous as Lisa thinks it should.

"A whole year with me," she adds. "The best year of my life." She wants to scream, but she can't. Doesn't have the heart to. "And he spent it calling for you."

It's like a bubble's been burst. Everything that had previously been silence now filled with a multitude of sound Lisa is suddenly, acutely aware of. The in and out of her own breathing. The droning of the light bulb. The gentle hum of the glowing marks.

And then, the quiet draw of breath as Castiel readies to speak.

A loud thump against the room's single door stops him.

There's another, shaking the wooden frame and rattling the hinges, and Castiel turns his head, watching the attempt at infiltration with a frown.

The noise makes Ben stir as well and Lisa blinks hard, pressing a knuckle quickly to the corners of her eyes to dispel as such of her heartache as possible.

"What is it?" Ben asks, voice shaking. "What's happening?"

"We're out of time," Castiel answers, turning back and slamming his palm against another symbol while the hammering against the door continues behind him.

Another flare of light and another set of markings dissolve. There's now a clear path from them to him where there's no blood at all.

Castiel stands and holds out a hand, eyes back on Lisa.

"Send your son across," he tells her.

Ben twists round, eyes meeting hers in question. Even with the ominous banging, growing louder by the second, Lisa's heart is warmed to know that it's her his trust lies with, in the end.

She nods, encouraging, and pushes to her feet, drawing Ben with her. Whatever there might be between her and Castiel - rivalry, enmity, jealousy, whatever you want to call it - she's certain, from the look in his eyes as he listened, that what he feels for Dean is stronger. And what Dean feels for Ben is perhaps even stronger than that. So she knows without a doubt she can trust Castiel with her son. For Dean's sake, he will protect Ben no matter what.

So she pats her son's shoulder and nods him forward.

Ben turns and takes a breath, gathering his courage.

"Step only on the empty space," Castiel instructs. "Do not veer from the path."

Ben nods and takes a step out of the inner circle. Nothing happens and, emboldened, he moves on.

He's almost half way to Castiel, splinters now cracking the doorway with every crash, when he turns back.

"What about mom?" he asks, gazing anxiously from her to Castiel.

Castiel meets the gaze, but looks away as he answers.

It might be to check the door. But Lisa doesn't think so.

It's strange, but she doesn't feel afraid about the lie and what it must mean for her. Instead she feels an overwhelming sense of detachment. Like what happens from this point on doesn't matter. Ben will be safe, he'll be with Dean, and her part in all of this will be over.

"You can only cross one at a time. You must hurry," Castiel says, words clipped. Impatience. Maybe.

Or shame.

Ben starts up again, one step, then another, until he's in reach of Castiel's outstretched hand, and the angel moves like lightening, gripping Ben's shoulder, fingers twisting into his T-shirt, and dragging him the rest of the way, past Joyce's crumpled body and tight to his chest.

As soon as Ben is past the outer circle, every line and curve, every symbol Castiel has spent the last few hours burning away, glows back into being.

He shields Ben from the sight, which Lisa is grateful for. She doesn't want what might be her son's last sight of her, and her's of him, to be one of panic and fear.

Their eyes meet again over the newly sealed trap and for the first time Castiel's expression is an open book, brow drawn with conflict, the weight of regret, of so many bad decisions, stacked up above eyes stormy with apology and something else. A dark delight in having to leave her behind.

But it doesn't matter. It's nothing to Lisa whether Castiel's motivations in saving her son over her are pure or not, because it's the right choice. And she can't hate him, not for any of his reasons. How can she? When his choices are so clearly the result of the same love she wakes up to herself every morning?

She nods to him once, in respect. In gratitude. In goodbye. And the door smashes open.

Shards of wood rain down, settling like snowflakes on the corpses of her friends, scratching her cheeks and filling up the otherwise empty space around her.

 

~ **fin** ~


End file.
